A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  Fenitchka simply flung herself upon him, and clasping him and her son together in her arms, dropped her head on his shoulder. Nikolai Petrovitch was surprised; Fenitchka, the reserved and staid Fenitchka, had never given him a caress in the presence of a third person.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, and, glancing at his brother, he gave her Mitya. ‘You don’t feel worse?’ he inquired, going up to Pavel Petrovitch.

  He buried his face in a cambric handkerchief. ‘No ... not at all ... on the contrary, I am much better.’

  ‘You were in too great a hurry to move on to the sofa. Where are you going?’ added Nikolai Petrovitch, turning round to Fenitchka; but she had already closed the door behind her. ‘I was bringing in my young hero to show you, he’s been crying for his uncle. Why has she carried him off? What’s wrong with you, though? Has anything passed between you, eh?’

  ‘Brother!’ said Pavel Petrovitch solemnly.

  Nikolai Petrovitch started. He felt dismayed, he could not have said why himself.

  ‘Brother,’ repeated Pavel Petrovitch, ‘give me your word that you will carry out my one request.’

  ‘What request? Tell me.’

  ‘It is very important; the whole happiness of your life, to my idea, depends on it. I have been thinking a great deal all this time over what I want to say to you now.... Brother, do your duty, the duty of an honest and generous man; put an end to the scandal and bad example you are setting — you, the best of men!’

  ‘What do you mean, Pavel?’

  ‘Marry Fenitchka.... She loves you; she is the mother of your son.’

  Nikolai Petrovitch stepped back a pace, and flung up his hands. ‘Do you say that, Pavel? you whom I have always regarded as the most determined opponent of such marriages! You say that? Don’t you know that it has simply been out of respect for you that I have not done what you so rightly call my duty?’

  ‘You were wrong to respect me in that case,’ Pavel Petrovitch responded, with a weary smile. ‘I begin to think Bazarov was right in accusing me of snobbishness. No dear brother, don’t let us worry ourselves about appearances and the world’s opinion any more; we are old folks and humble now; it’s time we laid aside vanity of all kinds. Let us, just as you say, do our duty; and mind, we shall get happiness that way into the bargain.’

  Nikolai Petrovitch rushed to embrace his brother.

  ‘You have opened my eyes completely!’ he cried. ‘I was right in always declaring you the wisest and kindest - hearted fellow in the world, and now I see you are just as reasonable as you are noble - hearted.’

  ‘Quietly, quietly,’ Pavel Petrovitch interrupted him; ‘don’t hurt the leg of your reasonable brother, who at close upon fifty has been fighting a duel like an ensign. So, then, it’s a settled matter; Fenitchka is to be my ... belle soeur.’

  ‘My dearest Pavel! But what will Arkady say?’

  ‘Arkady? he’ll be in ecstasies, you may depend upon it! Marriage is against his principles, but then the sentiment of equality in him will be gratified. And, after all, what sense have class distinctions au dix - neuvième siècle?’

  ‘Ah, Pavel, Pavel! let me kiss you once more! Don’t be afraid, I’ll be careful.’

  The brothers embraced each other.

  ‘What do you think, should you not inform her of your intention now?’ queried Pavel Petrovitch.

  ‘Why be in a hurry?’ responded Nikolai Petrovitch. ‘Has there been any conversation between you?’

  ‘Conversation between us? Quelle idée!’

  ‘Well, that is all right then. First of all, you must get well, and meanwhile there’s plenty of time. We must think it over well, and consider ...’

  ‘But your mind is made up, I suppose?’

  ‘Of course, my mind is made up, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will leave you now; you must rest; any excitement is bad for you.... But we will talk it over again. Sleep well, dear heart, and God bless you!’

  ‘What is he thanking me like that for?’ thought Pavel Petrovitch, when he was left alone. ‘As though it did not depend on him! I will go away directly he is married, somewhere a long way off — to Dresden or Florence, and will live there till I — — ’

  Pavel Petrovitch moistened his forehead with eau de cologne, and closed his eyes. His beautiful, emaciated head, the glaring daylight shining full upon it, lay on the white pillow like the head of a dead man.... And indeed he was a dead man.

  CHAPTER XXV

  At Nikolskoe Katya and Arkady were sitting in the garden on a turf seat in the shade of a tall ash tree; Fifi had placed himself on the ground near them, giving his slender body that graceful curve, which is known among dog - fanciers as ‘the hare bend.’ Both Arkady and Katya were silent; he was holding a half - open book in his hands, while she was picking out of a basket the few crumbs of bread left in it, and throwing them to a small family of sparrows, who with the frightened impudence peculiar to them were hopping and chirping at her very feet. A faint breeze stirring in the ash leaves kept slowly moving pale - gold flecks of sunlight up and down over the path and Fifi’s tawny back; a patch of unbroken shade fell upon Arkady and Katya; only from time to time a bright streak gleamed on her hair. Both were silent, but the very way in which they were silent, in which they were sitting together, was expressive of confidential intimacy; each of them seemed not even to be thinking of his companion, while secretly rejoicing in his presence. Their faces, too, had changed since we saw them last; Arkady looked more tranquil, Katya brighter and more daring.

  ‘Don’t you think,’ began Arkady, ‘that the ash has been very well named in Russian yasen; no other tree is so lightly and brightly transparent (yasno) against the air as it is.’

  Katya raised her eyes to look upward, and assented, ‘Yes’; while Arkady thought, ‘Well, she does not reproach me for talking finely.’

  ‘I don’t like Heine,’ said Katya, glancing towards the book which Arkady was holding in his hands, ‘either when he laughs or when he weeps; I like him when he’s thoughtful and melancholy.’

  ‘And I like him when he laughs,’ remarked Arkady.

  ‘That’s the relics left in you of your old satirical tendencies.’ (‘Relics!’ thought Arkady — ’if Bazarov had heard that?’) ‘Wait a little; we shall transform you.’

  ‘Who will transform me? You?’

  ‘Who? — my sister; Porfiry Platonovitch, whom you’ve given up quarrelling with; auntie, whom you escorted to church the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t refuse! And as for Anna Sergyevna, she agreed with Yevgeny in a great many things, you remember?’

  ‘My sister was under his influence then, just as you were.’

  ‘As I was? Do you discover, may I ask, that I’ve shaken off his influence now?’

  Katya did not speak.

  ‘I know,’ pursued Arkady, ‘you never liked him.’

  ‘I can have no opinion about him.’

  ‘Do you know, Katerina Sergyevna, every time I hear that answer I disbelieve it.... There is no man that every one of us could not have an opinion about! That’s simply a way of getting out of it.’

  ‘Well, I’ll say, then, I don’t.... It’s not exactly that I don’t like him, but I feel that he’s of a different order from me, and I am different from him ... and you too are different from him.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘How can I tell you.... He’s a wild animal, and you and I are tame.’

  ‘Am I tame too?’

  Katya nodded.

  Arkady scratched his ear. ‘Let me tell you, Katerina Sergyevna, do you know, that’s really an insult?’

  ‘Why, would you like to be a wild — — ’

  ‘Not wild, but strong, full of force.’

  ‘It’s no good wishing for that.... Your friend, you see, doesn’t wish for it, but he has it.’

  ‘Hm! So you imagine he had a great influence on Anna Sergyevna?’

  ‘Yes. But no one can keep the upper hand
of her for long,’ added Katya in a low voice.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘She’s very proud.... I didn’t mean that ... she values her independence a great deal.’

  ‘Who doesn’t value it?’ asked Arkady, and the thought flashed through his mind, ‘What good is it?’ ‘What good is it?’ it occurred to Katya to wonder too. When young people are often together on friendly terms, they are constantly stumbling on the same ideas.

  Arkady smiled, and, coming slightly closer to Katya, he said in a whisper, ‘Confess that you are a little afraid of her.’

  ‘Of whom?’

  ‘Her,’ repeated Arkady significantly.

  ‘And how about you?’ Katya asked in her turn.

  ‘I am too, observe I said, I am too.’

  Katya threatened him with her finger. ‘I wonder at that,’ she began; ‘my sister has never felt so friendly to you as just now; much more so than when you first came.’

  ‘Really!’

  ‘Why, haven’t you noticed it? Aren’t you glad of it?’

  Arkady grew thoughtful.

  ‘How have I succeeded in gaining Anna Sergyevna’s good opinion? Wasn’t it because I brought her your mother’s letters?’

  ‘Both that and other causes, which I shan’t tell you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I shan’t say.’

  ‘Oh! I know; you’re very obstinate.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘And observant.’

  Katya gave Arkady a sidelong look. ‘Perhaps so; does that irritate you? What are you thinking of?’

  ‘I am wondering how you have come to be as observant as in fact you are. You are so shy so reserved; you keep every one at a distance.’

  ‘I have lived a great deal alone; that drives one to reflection. But do I really keep every one at a distance?’

  Arkady flung a grateful glance at Katya.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ he pursued; ‘but people in your position — I mean in your circumstances — don’t often have that faculty; it is hard for them, as it is for sovereigns, to get at the truth.’

  ‘But, you see, I am not rich.’

  Arkady was taken aback, and did not at once understand Katya. ‘Why, of course, the property’s all her sister’s!’ struck him suddenly; the thought was not unpleasing to him. ‘How nicely you said that!’ he commented.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said it nicely, simply, without being ashamed or making a boast of it. By the way, I imagine there must always be something special, a kind of pride of a sort in the feeling of any man, who knows and says he is poor.’

  ‘I have never experienced anything of that sort, thanks to my sister. I only referred to my position just now because it happened to come up.’

  ‘Well; but you must own you have a share of that pride I spoke of just now.’

  ‘For instance?’

  ‘For instance, you — forgive the question — you wouldn’t marry a rich man, I fancy, would you?’

  ‘If I loved him very much.... No, I think even then I wouldn’t marry him.’

  ‘There! you see!’ cried Arkady, and after a short pause he added, ‘And why wouldn’t you marry him?’

  ‘Because even in the ballads unequal matches are always unlucky.’

  ‘You want to rule, perhaps, or ...’

  ‘Oh, no! why should I? On the contrary, I am ready to obey; only inequality is intolerable. To respect one’s self and obey, that I can understand, that’s happiness; but a subordinate existence ... No, I’ve had enough of that as it is.’

  ‘Enough of that as it is,’ Arkady repeated after Katya. ‘Yes, yes,’ he went on, ‘you’re not Anna Sergyevna’s sister for nothing; you’re just as independent as she is; but you’re more reserved. I’m certain you wouldn’t be the first to give expression to your feeling, however strong and holy it might be ...’

  ‘Well, what would you expect?’ asked Katya.

  ‘You’re equally clever; and you’ve as much, if not more, character than she.’

  ‘Don’t compare me with my sister, please,’ interposed Katya hurriedly; ‘that’s too much to my disadvantage. You seem to forget my sister’s beautiful and clever, and ... you in particular, Arkady Nikolaevitch, ought not to say such things, and with such a serious face too.’

  ‘What do you mean by “you in particular” — and what makes you suppose I am joking?’

  ‘Of course, you are joking.’

  ‘You think so? But what if I’m persuaded of what I say? If I believe I have not put it strongly enough even?’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Really? Well, now I see; I certainly took you to be more observant than you are.’

  ‘How?’

  Arkady made no answer, and turned away, while Katya looked for a few more crumbs in the basket, and began throwing them to the sparrows; but she moved her arm too vigorously, and they flew away, without stopping to pick them up.

  ‘Katerina Sergyevna!’ began Arkady suddenly; ‘it’s of no consequence to you, probably; but, let me tell you, I put you not only above your sister, but above every one in the world.’

  He got up and went quickly away, as though he were frightened at the words that had fallen from his lips.

  Katya let her two hands drop together with the basket on to her lap, and with bent head she stared a long while after Arkady. Gradually a crimson flush came faintly out upon her cheeks; but her lips did not smile and her dark eyes had a look of perplexity and some other, as yet undefined, feeling.

  ‘Are you alone?’ she heard the voice of Anna Sergyevna near her; ‘I thought you came into the garden with Arkady.’

  Katya slowly raised her eyes to her sister (elegantly, even elaborately dressed, she was standing in the path and tickling Fifi’s ears with the tip of her open parasol), and slowly replied, ‘Yes, I’m alone.’

  ‘So I see,’ she answered with a smile; ‘I suppose he has gone to his room.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you been reading together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anna Sergyevna took Katya by the chin and lifted her face up.

  ‘You have not been quarrelling, I hope?’

  ‘No,’ said Katya, and she quietly removed her sister’s hand.

  ‘How solemnly you answer! I expected to find him here, and meant to suggest his coming a walk with me. That’s what he is always asking for. They have sent you some shoes from the town; go and try them on; I noticed only yesterday your old ones are quite shabby. You never think enough about it, and you have such charming little feet! Your hands are nice too ... though they’re large; so you must make the most of your little feet. But you’re not vain.’

  Anna Sergyevna went farther along the path with a light rustle of her beautiful gown; Katya got up from the grass, and, taking Heine with her, went away too — but not to try on her shoes.

  ‘Charming little feet!’ she thought, as she slowly and lightly mounted the stone steps of the terrace, which were burning with the heat of the sun; ‘charming little feet you call them.... Well, he shall be at them.’

  But all at once a feeling of shame came upon her, and she ran swiftly upstairs.

  Arkady had gone along the corridor to his room; a steward had overtaken him, and announced that Mr. Bazarov was in his room.

  ‘Yevgeny!’ murmured Arkady, almost with dismay; ‘has he been here long?’

  ‘Mr. Bazarov arrived this minute, sir, and gave orders not to announce him to Anna Sergyevna, but to show him straight up to you.’

  ‘Can any misfortune have happened at home?’ thought Arkady, and running hurriedly up the stairs, he at once opened the door. The sight of Bazarov at once reassured him, though a more experienced eye might very probably have discerned signs of inward agitation in the sunken, though still energetic face of the unexpected visitor. With a dusty cloak over his shoulders, with a cap on his head, he was sitting at the window; he did not even get up when Arkady flung himself with no
isy exclamations on his neck.

  ‘This is unexpected! What good luck brought you?’ he kept repeating, bustling about the room like one who both imagines himself and wishes to show himself delighted. ‘I suppose everything’s all right at home; every one’s well, eh?’

  ‘Everything’s all right, but not every one’s well,’ said Bazarov. ‘Don’t be a chatterbox, but send for some kvass for me, sit down, and listen while I tell you all about it in a few, but, I hope, pretty vigorous sentences.’

  Arkady was quiet while Bazarov described his duel with Pavel Petrovitch. Arkady was very much surprised, and even grieved, but he did not think it necessary to show this; he only asked whether his uncle’s wound was really not serious; and on receiving the reply that it was most interesting, but not from a medical point of view, he gave a forced smile, but at heart he felt both wounded and as it were ashamed. Bazarov seemed to understand him.

  ‘Yes, my dear fellow,’ he commented, ‘you see what comes of living with feudal personages. You turn a feudal personage yourself, and find yourself taking part in knightly tournaments. Well, so I set off for my father’s,’ Bazarov wound up, ‘and I’ve turned in here on the way ... to tell you all this, I should say, if I didn’t think a useless lie a piece of foolery. No, I turned in here — the devil only knows why. You see, it’s sometimes a good thing for a man to take himself by the scruff of the neck and pull himself up, like a radish out of its bed; that’s what I’ve been doing of late.... But I wanted to have one more look at what I’m giving up, at the bed where I’ve been planted.’

  ‘I hope those words don’t refer to me,’ responded Arkady with some emotion; ‘I hope you don’t think of giving me up?’

  Bazarov turned an intent, almost piercing look upon him.

  ‘Would that be such a grief to you? It strikes me you have given me up already, you look so fresh and smart.... Your affair with Anna Sergyevna must be getting on successfully.’

  ‘What do you mean by my affair with Anna Sergyevna?’

  ‘Why, didn’t you come here from the town on her account, chicken? By the way, how are those Sunday schools getting on? Do you mean to tell me you’re not in love with her? Or have you already reached the stage of discretion?’